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Korean VFX technology has steadily developed for the last 20 years, ever since The Gingko Bed in 1996. It is not only large scale war movies like Ode to My Father (2014), but also films like Mr. Go (2013) and The Tiger (2015), in which the protagonists are digital characters, and fantasy movies like With God (W/T) which owe a great deal to VFX technology. Thanks to CG, which is a type of VFX technology, the scope of expression for Korean cinema is always expanding. Films like Assassination (2015), The Himalayas(2015) and The Tiger show off the power of CG, which is adding a degree of vitality to films. VFX technology is now a foundation on which to maintain today’s Korean cinema.

 

 

2015 was a great year for Korean cinema. It achieved an all-time attendance record of 215.21 million viewers, released two 10-million viewer hits (Assassination and Veteran), scored a 52% domestic market share, and so on. Industry exchanges with China, Hollywood and Southeast Asia became even more active, and several Korean films were released in many parts of the world on varying distribution scales. Now Korean cinema is facing a new challenge as it seeks to satisfy multi-national audiences. So what would be the key to this new task? Grand spectacle and VFX might offer a clue. Of course in the past there were movies with outstanding VFX technology, including The Restless (2006), The Host (2006) and Haeundae (2009). However, these came in sparse intervals, perhaps once or twice every two or three years.

 

This changed dramatically starting in 2014. Many spectacle-driven movies were released with VFX technology, and they consistently became successful. The power of Roaring Currents and The Pirates, released in summer 2014, and Ode to My Father, released in winter 2014, were revelatory. They reached the highest ranks of the all time box office charts in Korea and had a sizeable impact on the increase in attendance and the domestic film share. In 2015, the triumph of VFX-equipped movies continued with Assassination and The Himalayas.

 

 

Assassination follows the assassination plan of independence movement activists during the Japanese Occupation who have gathered in Gyeongseong to terminate pro-Japan traitors in 1933. The VFX department in Assassination had the tremendous responsibilities of realistically reviving 1930s Gyeongseong. The plan for 4th Creative Party, a VFX company which worked on CG for Assassination, was to stay true to history while making the CG as natural as possible.

 

Some of the major settings created with CG were the Gyeongseong station where the assassination team arrives from China, the Mitsukoshi Department Store plaza where AHN Ok-yun (Gianna JUN) meets her twin sister, and Seosomun Street where the assassination takes place. The VFX team digitized, through 3D wideband scanning, the pictures of the streets actually shot, and arranged the CG-made buildings around the space so that the actual filming locations and virtual buildings could naturally blend with each other.

 

For the crowded Gyeongseong station, they used photos of the Laoxing Station in China where trains from the 1930s are still kept; Mitsukoshi Department Store used photos taken from the Chedun studio set in Shanghai; and the gas station in Seosomun Street used photos taken from the open studio set in Ilsan, Gyeonggi-do Province.

 

This footage was then scanned through 3D wideband and the edges were blended with CG. Buildings around Mitsukoshi Department Store, like the Gyeongseong Post Office, are the result of examining and incorporating careful study of the photos and materials from the 1930s.

 

For the open set studio to revive Seosomun Street, main buildings were built up until the first floor and the rest of the buildings and distant backgrounds were all rendered through CG. Jongno and Cheonggyecheon, where the street fighting takes place, were also created through CG, based on carefully examined historical materials. In addition, VFX technology played other significant roles in Assassination, including in the car explosion scene, and the digital character replacing for Gianna JUN's action, and so on.

 

Another impressive scene is where Gianna JUN's character meets her twin sister. This scene was shot twice in the same space and blended later, which required a very careful and subtle technique. Two Gianna JUN figures converse with each other, handing and receiving objects. For this complicated movement, MCC (Motion Camera Control System) of Busan Film Commission was used.

 

 

 

Korea’s VFX technology successfully rendered the magnificent ocean in Roaring Currents and The Pirates, and took one step further with The Himalayas. This latter film, which attracted 7.28 million accumulated viewers as of January 15th, 2015, is one of the few Korean films to depict mountain climbing, and is based on the true story of a group of climbers and their captain UM Hong-gil (HWANG Jung-min).

 

The company in charge of CG for this film was Rasca FX, headed by Danny KIM, who obtained rich VFX experience in Hollywood on films like Captain America: The First Avenger and Black Swan. Their task was to create mountains that are forever changing as they respond to the air, clouds and snow, as opposed to mountains staying still like frozen rocks.

 

First of all, it was important to get as many sources as possible, in order to depict the varied faces of a mountain. Staying at the Himalayas base camp, the crew spent a whole month just framing the sources. It took them six months to collect the different shapes of snow and ice, as they traveled to different places in the mountain. With these sources, the top of the mountain Everest and Kanchengunga were created.

 

In addition to the mountain climbing scenes, the CG team also worked on the blizzard during the helicopter rescue scene and the starry night sky that UM and his colleague look up at while spending a night clinging to the ice cliff wall. The role of CG was to maximize dramatic atmosphere while still staying within the background, not as the focal point.

 

From snowy winds and icy breath to the mountain storm and the snowy mountains, as much as 80% of the film was made through CG. The Himalayas is all the more meaningful as, in addition to creating the magnificent mountain landscape seen in films like Everest and North Face, it tells a specific Korean drama.

 

 

 

The hardest skill in the scope of film VFX is to produce creatures. To make creatures that move, run and breathe is the dream of many VFX companies. In Korean cinema, several films, including The Host, Chaw (2009), Sector 7 (2011), War of the Arrows (2011) and The Pirates, have produced digital creatures, such as of the creature, boar, tiger and whale, respectively.

 

However, The Tiger made a totally different type of creature. Dae-ho the tiger is rather similar to a half-human half-beast creature like the gorilla in KIM Yong-hwa's Mr. Go or the beast in King Kong. Moreover, Dae-ho is one of the lead characters in The Tiger. The film depicts the story of the one-eyed tiger Dae-ho, former hunter Man-duk (CHOI Min-shik) and the Japanese troops trying to hunt the tiger down.

 

Made 100% through CG, Dae-ho not only shows a charismatic presence equivalent to CHOI, one of the leading actors in Korea, but also dramatic reactions to show the despair of losing her family, and, in addition, superb action in the chase scene.

 

4th Creative Party, in charge of the VFX work in The Tiger, had no previous experience of making digital creatures but possessed a deep understanding of the scenario. Incorporating his disability as an one-eyed beast, they turned Dae-ho into an audacious and cunning character from the start. Additionally, Dae-ho's looks were depicted as reflecting the change in time. For example, her jaw, wet with blood right after the battle scene, becomes drier as time goes by and the number of wounds on her face and body increases little by little. The change of hair as she goes through the wind and snow is also minutely depicted.

 

The digital creatures-only sequence is worth noting as well, where Dae-ho confronts the wolves. Each of the several dozen wolves was created with its own distinct look and characteristics, which is solely the work of the VFX team, which demonstrates the current status and potential of Korean CG technology.